Grim Goodbye
by Amarxlen
Summary: There are two choices, he knows, but so long as he doesn't look down he can ignore the existence of the second choice. The moment he looks down, he knows, everything will shatter.


**A/N:** Major angst fest. Angst of the purest sort. Angst.

**Disclaimer:** I've been putting this in often lately. I guess it's just an excuse to goof off. Anyways, I digress, _Naruto_ is not mine. Unless owning the movie, seasons, messenger bag, and manga count as owning it. Cause then I'd totally own it. And you'd _know_.

_Something holds me down and makes me act in a way I can't explain  
__Even now I can feel it coming over me, choking me  
__As I'm falling behind  
__You can say you know me,  
__But you have no clue what my dreams could show you.  
__-Grim Goodbye; The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus_

_Grim Goodbye  
__Amarxlen_

It was silent in the clearing aftermath of the explosion the power of two incredible jutsu created upon impact. The smoke had become invisible as the clouds covered the sun in a final gesture. The clouds were dark and foreboding, sinister, even as they wafted lazily overhead, threatening.

Still, the sight they provided was better than what the Uchiha avoided looking at, sprawled on the ground at his feet. The clouds gave him no reason to even contemplate regret, let alone the guilt that would try to burrow its way into his mind when he thought he'd so thoroughly quashed it down. He would just stare at the clouds, threatening and foreboding though they were, until he could call up the will needed to make his aching limbs respond to the command to _get away_.

The drops, when they first came, were slow, hitting individual parts of his skin, never the same place twice. Then, they started falling more insistently, pattering his body, until every inch of him was soaked through and the drops blended together so that mere seconds after impact he couldn't tell where they had landed or flowed to. The whisper as they fell through trees, the rumble he felt through his feet when thunder sounded, it all seemed to be saying one thing. _Look down, you coward. Look at his face, and then try telling me you'll leave._

He ignored their vague trembling undertones as he focused on trying to move. His limbs wouldn't respond, whether through weariness or defiance he didn't know, but he couldn't find the energy it would require to get irritated at this unpleasant development. Instead he could only stand there, patient, and wait for the will to move to return. He stared up emptily, blinking slowly as rain beat at his eyes and tried to force his gaze down. This weak force was nothing compared to the recent hurricane that had torn through his senses. _Look down, you coward._

And then there was pain in his left arm, as his right snapped up to grasp it in a subconscious reaction with trembling fingers. His eyes widened, but he managed to suppress the groan of pain that threatened to pass his lips. It didn't matter that there was no one there to hear it, he was there to hear it, and somehow, he didn't feel as if he should utter even a whimper in this place. The choking sound that came when he coughed up blood couldn't be stopped however, and he numbly noted the broken silence. _Look at his face, and then try telling me you'll leave._

Instead, for that moment, he focused on the crimson trails running with the flow of bitter raindrops. He surveyed it as if it was the most interesting thing in the world, to see his life-source streaming on the ground by his knee. He followed the scarlet rivulets with his eyes all the while trying to force his limbs to move. His arms only quivered as they held his body up, weary from the most exhausting – both mentally and physically – day of his life. It was inevitable that the flow of blood would lead his eyes to land on what he wanted to avoid. _Look down, you coward. Look at his face, and then try telling me you'll leave._

And he finally did look. He finally gazed at the tangled mass of blond, pushed away from its owner's eyes by the rain, and plastered to his cheeks by the same force. He finally took in the whisker marks, the ones he had scarcely looked at before, but now found himself hazily interested in. He finally stared at the chapped lips, pale pink, parted slightly, as if to murmur more insults, more pleas, made to look deceivingly soft under the influence of the current downpour. He saved the eyes for last, the closed eyes, beneath which he knew skies and oceans lay hidden, warm and bright to be given to anybody, even though they might not deserve it. _I'm looking at him._

Surprisingly, regret never took him, never grasped for him with her icy hand, never reached from the darkness with her menacing tentacles to drag him back to her cursed cave, or whatever hole she ought to stay in for all eternity. Guilt never invaded his heart, never clawed through it with her nails, sharp as katana well looked after, never swirled to devour him and lick her lips with satisfaction once she finished, trapping him forever in a cage, one she should be locked in herself. Everything remained numb, like the receding pain of his throbbing arm, pain he knew should be striking, consuming, but merely tickled. _I'm looking at him._

In the dark pit where he found no regret lurking around the corner, found no guilt hiding in a bush waiting in ambush, he finally forced his limbs, weary and protesting as they were, to move. He had to get away. For once in his life he had been blessed, blessed with numbness that allowed him to escape regret, escape guilt and run to take refuge from a threat he couldn't bear to extinguish. He knew the truth, much as he ignored it; he knew he had two choices. He was aware that he could turn around right now, run back to Konoha with the blond in his arms and hope forgiveness was granted. Instead he chose to run, run away from the regret he knew he would feel when stuck in the middle of familiar faces, run away from the guilt he knew he would experience every time the blond gave him a smile he was unworthy of. The numbness would die there, it would shrivel up and he'd forget.

He'd forget his goal in life, his mission, his only purpose. Because protecting them, Naruto and Sakura, it could only have been his purpose for a limited time, could only have been his purpose so long as they were too weak to defend themselves. And that was something they couldn't give him, something they wouldn't give him. They were to be teammates on equal terms, not under the condition that as long as they stayed weak their protector Sasuke would stay by their side.

He couldn't forget the only purpose he was left with was to kill him, his older brother, Itachi, to eradicate him as he annihilated their clan. His only purpose was to exterminate his brother, lowlier than a filthy cockroach that scrambled around on his kitchen floor, daunting, _Nah-nah, can't catch me!_ And that filthy cockroach wanted him to kill his best friend. And for what? A lousy pair of eyes? Itachi dominated his life, but he couldn't dominate his bonds, ignored, neglected, despised as they were. He wouldn't kill Naruto for a measly pair of eyes.

His foot splashed down into the tender soil, mud staining the zori wrapped around his feet. It took a millisecond longer than he would have liked to lift his foot from that clinging earth as it once again fell gracelessly and firmly. He liked to think this firm way of stepping was a thing of defiance, rather than a show of bone-tiredness for anything that had the curiosity to look in his direction. But he couldn't deny it. He was bone weary, he felt God awful, and wanted nothing more than to sink down and fall asleep with the unbidden hope that the last few days were a dream. Yet he continued to walk, strongly, weakly, defiantly, compliantly, eagerly, warily, falling apart at the seams, and being stitched back together by an outside force. He continued to walk away, and he didn't look back.


End file.
